“Win/Win”

Today I’m attempting to thread together all of what I’ve written thus far to my own personal experiences, in hopes of building a story others can identify with. I was struck by something my daughter said to me yesterday as we were texting about the situation going on with her job. Her boss was suddenly let go, this after several discussions throughout the weekend about his stifling management technique of not delegating and empowering his staff to create within their job responsibilities, innovative developments to raise the entire organization to a higher level. She expressed frustration about his lack of implementation of sound strategies she’s presented to him. Concerned about her future there, I asked about her future with this organization, and having to communicate her value proposition to the owners, suggesting she would be in a position to sell herself and her vision all over again. Her response was simply, “That’s all I’m thinking about. Any open-ended uncertain situation like this is an opportunity for growth”. I would like to believe this attitude was cultivated somewhat from the foundation laid by the parenting she received under my care. You see, I attained full custody of my children three years after divorcing their mother, and within a couple of months of this transition, my second wife passed away suddenly. I remarried a third time just a year and a half later. This put my children through a lot of change, and adversity throughout their childhood, yet they both have developed this attitude of striving to find their place in the world, absent of identifying themselves as victims in circumstances beyond their control. This would be a specific point of emphasis in the social construct proposition. The concept first came to me listening to an interview with Michael Mauboussin discussing his book “Think Twice” harnessing the power of counterintuition, where he proclaimed there are essentially two basic perspectives by which humans view their existence. First, those who see the good in their lives as grace, or fortuitous and the bad things are associated with our decision making abilities, and can be improved with our decision making skills. The second is that all the good things that happen we worked for and deserve, and anything bad is simply bad luck. He added that this entitled perspective is consistent with the victim perspective, and attributes to a sense of hopelessness in regards to attaining greater accomplishments. Stanford did some research along these same theory, and discovered the ratio from the first to second was 20/80 in how people view their lives. Could that be the hangover of hundreds of years of wealth being transferred by bloodline, instead of meritocracy? I see it vital to distinguish ones self as to how we identify with our existence, in realizing growth as an individual. That’s primarily why my daughters comment touched me in the fashion it did. Luck can greatly effect your outcome based upon when and where you are born, but your input during your life also carries significant weight in capitalizing on opportunities available to you.